Can Interest Rates Go Lower? Yes, They Can.

After the Wall Street bailouts, the debt of the United States is off the charts, although the United States debt situation looks great compared to Greece and some other countries in Europe.

The Wall Street Journal quotes economist Carmen Reinhart in asserting that it takes seven years, on average, to unwind debt. Reinhart said, “The issue with debt is that you can’t get rid of it quickly and can’t rid of it nicely.”

I had a conversation last year with Pete Mahurin, the Bowling Green, Ky. stockbroker, banker and financial guru. I asked him if interest rates were going to spike upward soon.
He reminded me that interest rates dropped during the Great Depression and stayed that way for 20 years.

The Wall Street Journal’s article backs up Pete’s observation. They quote former World Bank official, Liaquat Ahamed, who said that the Federal Reserve cut the discount rate below two percent in 1934 and it held at those levels until the mid-1950s.

Even more relevant, Ahamed notes that rates in Japan dropped to near zero in 1995 and have stayed that way ever since.

Mahurin had other thoughts on interest rates. He said that “Generals are often accused of fighting the last war instead of the one in front of them.” Pete said that the baby boom generation grew up in a unique, high interest rate period of the 1970s, when inflation was insane and mortgages were near 20 percent interest rates.

You didn’t see that spike before or after that post-Vietnam, post-Great Society, post-Watergate period.

I’m like the rest of the baby boomers. I’ve been waiting since 1981 for the rates to go back to 20 percent again.

Now I am starting to wonder if they will ever come back up.

Mahurin told me that he grew up around people who had lived through the Great Depression. Many of them lived their lives waiting for deflation to return and were burned by the high inflation in the 1970s.

We have to look at all possibilities.

I started in the structured settlement annuity business in late 1982, when the rate of return on annuities was about 17 percent.

During my nearly 30 years in business, I have met people who won’t commit to an annuity because they are “waiting for interest rates to go back up.”

I can understand some hesitancy. Immediate annuities are designed for the long-term and, usually, to last for a person’s lifetime.

Dr. Richard Thaler, a professor of Economics and Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago, wrote an excellent New York Times piece titled, “The Annuity Puzzle for Retirement Investing.”

Thaler said that, given a choice between taking a lifetime annuity for retirement or trying to invest a lump sum, most would be better off with an annuity, but most take the lump sum.
Dr. Thaler calls this “the annuity puzzle.” He gives a lot of explanations based on behavioral science, but one is obvious: Retirees don’t want to commit to long-term annuities. They think interest rates are going to go up.

People have been betting on higher interest rates for over 25 years. And for over 25 years, they have been wrong.

Could they be wrong again?

In the 1980s, I had a client who purchased large blocks of annuities to fund insurance claims. He was getting ready to purchase a million dollar block when interest rates went from 10 percent to 9.9 percent. He stopped buying, saying he would wait “until interest rates got back to 10 percent again.”

He’s been waiting over 20 years. Interest rates have not been back to 10 percent since that day. He finally made his move when they got to about 8 percent. He missed the chance at 9.9 percent, but locking in at 8 percent has worked out well compared to other alternatives.

In a few years, will people be saying the same thing about locking in at three or four percent?

Ahamed had an interesting perspective in the Wall Street Journal piece: “History shows that when people have borrowed too much, they stop borrowing and interest rates stay very low for a very long time.”

The common assumption is that interest rates are going to go higher.

Sometimes we have to consider the inconsiderable.

Like the possibility of lower interest rates.

Don McNay, who lives in Richmond, Ky., is an award-winning financial columnist for Huffington Post Contributor. You can learn more about him at www.donmcnay.com.

About the Author

[gravatar email="don@donmcnay.com" size="60" alt="Don McNay" class="user-picture"]
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is the best sellling author of the book Wealth Without Wall Street: A Main Street Guide to Making Money.
McNay is an award winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.
He is the Chairman of the Board for the McNay Settlement Group (www.mcnay.com) which provides structured settlement consulting for injury victims, lottery winners, and the families of special needs children.
McNay founded Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC, which assists attorneys in as conservators and setting up guardianship's. It is nationally recognized as an administrator of Qualified Settlement (468b) funds.
Don has appeared on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and over 100 radio and television programs.
McNay has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni. Don is a Quarter Century member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.